The Taiwan Livestock Research Institute has built respiration chambers to accurately measure farm animals’ methane emissions in a move to combat global warming.
Methane is one of the major greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, and can be produced by pigs and chickens.
Methane’s global warming potential per unit is 28 times higher than carbon dioxide’s, the institute said.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Livestock Research Institute
To aid the government’s efforts in promoting net zero sustainability, respiration chambers were constructed to measure methane emissions by pigs and chickens, the two animals that make up the biggest portion of the local animal husbandry industry in Taiwan, it said.
The amount of methane produced in the digestive tract of pigs and chickens can be accurately measured using the respiration chambers, the institute said, adding that the total methane output of the industry can be estimated using the data and be used in future policies or counseling practice.
Researchers have calculated the amount of methane emitted by farm animals nationwide as early as two decades ago, but the data collected were not very accurate due to improvements in breeding stock and variable feed efficiency, it said.
As automation technology has been substituted for manual sampling, more data could be obtained to increase the accuracy of calculations, the institute said.
Given that there are more than 5.2 million pigs and about 400 million chickens farmed in Taiwan every year, the respiration chambers are crucial to obtaining accurate and reliable measurements, it said, adding that the equipment can also be applied to other carbon emissions-related research fields.
The respiration chambers have built-in air-conditioning and environmental control systems that can maintain a suitable temperature for farm animals to live, the institute said.
Transparent partitions were installed on three sides of each chamber so the confined animal could see the outside world, thereby reducing their anxiety, and increasing the experiment’s accuracy and stability, it said.
The measurements from the respiration chambers would be used to update the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, calculate the carbon footprint of livestock and provide baseline data for future net zero sustainability strategies, the institute said.
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